Jumpers

Fascinating (if morbid) article in The New Yorker on stories of suicide attempts from The Golden Gate Bridge (all but 26 of the more than 1,200 jumpers were successful in their efforts to end their life).

(via TinyApps.org)

Do you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese at the North Pole?

Hilarious video mash-up of Pulp Fiction and classic Rankin-Bass holiday animation.

(via Boing Boing)

WWSD?

Time to try and luck out again with football pool picks this week. Here is the email I sent to Pete "I'll sell your home, any home for $39.95" Bruinsma:

Pete,

Merry Christmas,

Here are my picks... It being Christmastime, I asked myself, WWSD? (What Would Santa Do?)

Since there are no NFL teams (yet) at the North Pole, I figured Santa would be rooting for the northernmost teams in each of this weekend's lineups.

For my data, I relied on The NFL Stadium Guide for an address of where each team's home stadium actually resides. For example, Buffalo's Ralph Wilson Stadium is actually not in Buffalo, but in Orchard Park, NY. Giants Stadium is in New Jersey, etc.

Once I had a solid location for each team, I Googled for their latitude, which if you recall from Geometry class, tells how far away from the equator you are. The equator would be at 0 degrees latitude, and the more north you go, the higher the latitude. Santa at the North Pole would be at 90 degrees north latitude. Thus he will be cheering for the team with the higher latitude in each of this weekend's matchups.

Okay, here we go!

Minnesota (Minneapolis, MN) is 44 degrees 53 minutes North
Green Bay, WI is 44 degrees 29 minutes North
Pick: Minnesota!

Kansas City is 39 degrees 7 minutes North
Oakland is 37 degrees 49 minutes
Pick: Kansas City!

Denver is 39 degrees 45 minutes North
Tennessee (Nashville, TN) is 36 degrees 7 minutes North
Pick: Denver!

Pittsburgh is 40 degrees 30 minutes North
Baltimore is 39 degrees 11 minutes North
Pick: Pittsburgh!

Detroit is 42 degrees 25 minutes North
Chicago is 41 degrees 50 minutes North
Pick: Detroit!

Cincinnati is 39 degrees 9 minutes North
NY Giants (East Rutherford, NJ) is 40 degrees 49 minutes North
Pick: NY Giants!

Indianapolis is 39 degrees 44 minutes North
San Diego is 32 degrees 44 minutes North
Pick: Indianapolis!

Jacksonville is 30 degrees 30 minutes North
Houston is 29 degrees 58 minutes North
Pick: Jacksonville!

Tampa Bay (Tampa, FL) is 27 degrees 58 minutes North
Carolina (Charlotte, NC) is 35 degrees 13 minutes North
Pick: Carolina!

New Orleans is 29 degrees 59 minutes North
Atlanta is 33 degrees 39 minutes North
Pick: Atlanta!

New England (Foxborough, MA) is 42 degrees 13 minutes North
NY Jets (East Rutherford, NJ) is 40 degrees 49 minutes North
Pick: New England!

Buffalo (Orchard Park, NY) is 42 degrees 56 minutes North
San Francisco is 37 degrees 37 minutes North
Pick: Buffalo!

Washington (Landover, MD) is 38 degrees 56 minutes North
Dallas (Irving, TX) is 32 degrees 51 minutes North
Pick: Washington!

Seattle is 47 degrees 37 minutes North
Arizona (Tempe, AZ) is 33 degrees 32 minutes North
Pick: Seattle!

Miami is 25 degrees 48 minutes North
Cleveland is 41 degrees 24 minutes North
Pick: Cleveland!

St. Louis is 38 degrees 45 minutes North
Philadelphia is 39 degrees 53 minutes North
Pick: Philadelphia!

Tie breaker will be Philly's latitude of 39

OEDILF on NPR update

As previously mentioned, the clever people who contribute limericks to OEDILF (The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form) are being covered on NPRs Weekend Edition Saturday.

Looks like things are happening fast, as the interview is scheduled to be taped tomorrow, Christmas Eve morning and might possibly even air the following day. As they say, check your local listings. NPR also archives the show, so once it airs, I'll post a link to that as well.

The interview will be with Chris J. Stolin, Editor-In-Chief, and will be about four minutes in length after it gets edited down. Check it out while your opening presents (assuming it will air this Saturday... guess it's still a little up in the air).

You better not pout

You better not cry. Gallery of extremely unhappy children visiting Santa.

(via Boing Boing)

This photo wasn't in the gallery, but I thought it was pretty good.

Meat The Beastles

The Beastles is one of the better mash-ups I've heard, fusing Beastie Boys with Beatles. The InfoNation staff's picks are "Watcha Want, Lady?" and "Tripper Trouble" The album is available for download by dj BC. Ch-ch-ch-check it out!

(via Screenhead)

A snake by any other name...

...would be just as hard to get out of the dashboard.

(thanks for the link, Tim!)

OEDILF on NPR

Earlier this summer, I posted on the OEDILF: The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form, whose goal is to rewrite the Oxford English Dictionary by defining every word in the English language in the form of reader-submitted limericks.

To wit, this definition of al dente:

I like my potatoes al dente.
To cook them ten minutes is plente,
So they don't turn to mush
Or primordial slush
Like they do when you boil them for twente.

The other week I submitted them as a story idea to NPR, and this past weekend, a producer from NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday emailed OEDILF's Editor-in-Chief Chris J. Stolin (and CC'd me in the email) asking him for an interview. Looks like the NPR story will be a go!

Right now there is a spirited discussion in the Forums on which limericks will be chosen to read during the interview. I have submitted seven limericks thusfar, all with a current status of "Tentative", and none clever enough to make the grade... Still, if this NPR story boosts interest in them, it's kinda cool to know I helped in some way.

Congrats and good luck, OEDILF!

My picks rocked! And papered. And scissored.

A few days ago, I posted about how I was going to make my picks for this weeks office football pool using the Rock, Paper, Scissors method. Well, the results are in, and I managed to luck out once again! Yep, the RPS strategy correctly picked 10 out the 15 games played so far. There's still tonight's Monday night game, but with the nearest competitor at 8 wins, it's a clinch.

So, anyone got any ideas for how to do my picks for Week 16? Preferably something Christmas-themed.

I'm Holdin' Out For...This?!

Roll your own superhero with Hero Machine 2.

Gaze with wonder and fear upon my latest creation... Jaundice Justice! Behold the Willie Nelson-esque braids! The brooding Dangling Cigarette! The kicky epaulet/kilt/leotard combo! And with those teeny-tiny ankle wings, I imagine he gets just enough lift to really clean out those Guess-Your-Weight guys at the carnival.



(via Random Drivel)

Good old rock! Nothing beats that!

In a recent post, I mentioned that I am having fun this football pool season using unorthodox means for choosing my picks each week. So far I've used such diverse methods as:
- coin toss
- "Alphabetically first" by team name
- Longest team name
- highest Scrabble score by team name
and a few others as well...

This week will be decided using the most commonly used decision-making method on the planet: Rock, Paper, Scissors. You know... Rock crushes Scissors, Scissors cuts Paper, Paper covers Rock.

I'll update with my picks in a couple of days (don't want to let my competition know what I'm picking until their picks are in). In the meantime, while doing research on the fabled game, I stumbled across World RPS Society and RPSChamps.com, the latter focusing specifically on the Rock Paper Scissors World Championships. No, I'm not kidding. Looks like a lot of fun and no one takes it too seriously. The surprisingly detailed Official Rules are here.

There's plenty of video at RPSChamps, and WorldRPS is generous with Advanced Strategy, recognized Gambits and even a virtual Online RPS Trainer in, just in case you can't find a worthy opponent.


Inspiring RPS artwork through the Ages!

Bonus! Look for the soon-to-be-released documentary "Rock Paper Scissors" sometime in January 2005!

Apparently the 2004 Championship was held October 16th in Toronto, but the highlights were just on The Best Damn Sports Show Period on Fox just last week December 10th. Crap! Guess I'll have to wait for the 2005s now...

You one sinnin' buggah, eh? No worry beef curry! I got Da Jesus Book.

Da Jesus Book is the product of a 12-year effort to translate the Bible into Hawaiian Pidgin.

What is Pidgin? Pidgin is a language born of the mix of tongues brought to Hawaii in the late 1800s by immigrant sugar-cane laborers from China, Japan, Portugal, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and other countries. Their need for a common language produced what the translators of this book call "Hawai'i Creole English," popularly known as Pidgin.

There are a lot of Pidgin dictionaries out there, but the one at e-hawaii.com is one of the best. If you are more of an audio learner, Full On Pidgin has some handy wav files to let you listen to the real deal. Check 'um out, brah!

Something to fall back on

If your career arc is arcing right into the toilet, it might be good to pick up some other marketable skills. Like knee surgery! Remember what Dr. Nick Riviera says: "The coroner? I'm so sick of that guy! See you in the operating place!"

(via Cynical-C)

deja entendu

French 101

deja vu: already seen
deja entendu: already heard

What's That Song? (via largehearted boy)

Wondering what's that song they played in that commercial? Adtunes knows.

Rkstar.com's (hard) version of Name That Tune

Even nature is getting in the act.

Mere alcohol doesn't thrill me at all...

...But I get a kick out of you



Ultimate Fieldgoal Kicking game
Kicking camp
Ass-kicking machine
Learn the Honky-Tonk Kick in 32 E-Z Steps!
Robo-kicking at Robocup

24 frames of goodness per second

50 Greatest Movie Deaths,
Greatest Last Lines and Final Film Quotes
and Great Film Moments. All found at the nifty Filmsite.org, which also features lots of in-depth film reviews and analysis of cinema's best.

(via Cynical-C)

The Answer is: "Follow the yellow brick road"

... and the Question is: What are good directions to a urologist's office?



The Answer is: "Ben Gay".
The Question is: Why didn't Mrs. Franklin have children?

Now that you're in Carnac The Magnificent mode, give The ESP Game a try. Here's the basic rules:

The ESP Game is a two-player game. Each time you play you are randomly paired with another player whose identity you don't know. You can't communicate with your partner, and the only thing you have in common with them is that you can both see the same image. The goal is to guess what your partner is typing on each image. Once you both type the same word(s), you get a new image. Each time you type a word or phrase, you must press enter on your keyboard to submit it to the game. You can type as many guesses as you want, and as soon as a single guess of yours is equal to a guess that your partner has made, you get a new image. You have two and a half minutes to agree on 15 images.

Some images have taboo words, which you can't use; nor can you use any plural, singular, or word related to a taboo word. If one of the taboos for an image is the name of a color, you cannot use any other color as a guess. If you feel that an image is too hard, you can ask to pass by clicking the yellow pass button on the lower right corner. Clicking the button will generate a message on your partner's screen, letting them know that you want to pass. You cannot pass on an image until both you and your partner have hit the pass button

(via Bifurcated Rivets)

It's just a jump to the left...

Annoying (to me anyway) Sliding block puzzles that had me uttely mystified. After trying one of the supposedly "easy" ones that can be solved in "only" 26 moves, and being "nowhere %$*@!ing near" a solution after 122 moves, I was ready to "pitch" my "monitor" out the "window" into "moving traffic".



(via Bifurcated Rivets)

Half idiot. Half savant. Half lucky.

"Nobody in football should be called a genius. A genius is a guy like Norman Einstein." -- Joe Theismann


A friend of mine named Pete has a football pool that I play in each week. Everyone chips in $5 and makes their picks for the week. Point spreads are used, so in theory it should be a pretty much 50-50 chance of getting a correct pick for each matchup. Right? I mean, that's the whole point of the spread... so that the oddsmakers can keep everyone from betting on the obvious favorite.

I'll admit right off that I don't know squat about which team the "smart money" should bet on for any given game. But like I said, I believe the spread system pretty much turns each pick into a crapshoot. So why bother doing all the painstaking research on win/loss home/away records and who's out with a pulled hamstring and so forth? The oddsmakers already took this stuff into account and did their best to equalize it with the spread. My random picks have just as much of a shot at being correct as Johnny-Sporto's picks.

This year I decided to have some fun with different methods of randomly choosing my teams. I gotta tell you, it's been working pretty well! This past weekend was Week 13 and I just won the pool for the third time. And that's with missing at one of the weeks because I forgot to get my picks in on time. I might have even missed another week in there towards the beginning of the season, I'm not sure. This with about 14 or so people playing each week.

So, how am I choosing my teams?

I have been trying to come up with different ways each week, more or less. Here are some of the more interesting ones:

Week 3 Was "Alphabetically First Week" (so if Atlanta was playing Detroit that week, I would have chosen Atlanta. Bad strategy. I ended up with the least amount of correct picks (3 and 10). But dammit, if I would have been listening to the voices inside my head a little closer, I would have realized they were telling me to pick alphabetically last, not first! Then I would have won that week as well with a 10 and 3 record.

Week 5 "Underdog Week". That also didn't do so well. Wound up somewhere in the middle of the pack.

Week 6 was "Longest Team Name Week", so San Diego had to beat Atlanta, Tennessee had to beat Houston, etc. I actually didn't do all that bad that week, but not enough to win it.

Week 8 My first win, using the most basic of things: a coin toss. Heads went to favorite and Tails went to underdogs.

Week 9 Tried the lucky quarter for Week 9 as well, since it brought me my first win and all, but this time it netted me the bottom slot with something like 3 and 10. Once again, I should have done the opposite, which would have snagged another win.

Week 10, another winning week for me was a flashback to my misspent teenage youth playing D&D in the basement with my friends. Using an online dice generator, I rolled two regular 6-sided virtual dice for each matchup that week. If the roll was an even number, I chose the favorite, odds went to the underdog.

Week 12 "Poker Week" went like this: Each matchup was dealt five cards, and the one with the best poker hand was my pick. I did not bad, with around 11 wins, I think (going on memory here), but not quite good enough to win.

Week 13 Another profitable week for me. This time teams were chosen based on the the game Scrabble®. Each team name was tallied up on how many Scrabble® points it was worth, and the higher-scoring team name was my pick.

So now I come to you, InfoNation Readers and Readerettes... how should I choose my picks for these last few weeks of the NFL season? I am considering some sort of a dartboard thing, perhaps having my two-year old son pick teams one week... any ideas? Feel free to put 'em in the comments!



Candid photo of me making next week's picks!

Pete, the guy who runs the pool, has even been so kind as to construct a little tribute page to my glorious achievements. At least that's what I'm telling myself. I checked, and the words "idiot" and "moron" do not appear on that page anywhere, so I'll take that as a good sign.

PS. Just to keep the good mojo flowing, I ought to mention that if you need to buy or sell a house, Pete is your man. Just look at that mug and tell me whether he could steer you wrong. Merits and awards up the ying-yang. He was even his Neighborhood Association's Dog Park Meetings Coordinator for cripes sake.

"I can't say cheese! I'm lactose-intolerant!"

Condi Rice is Angry!
(via Major Geeks)

Julia Child never covered this...

When cooking with lava, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it.
(thanks to Julie "We're in a volcano. We're surrounded by liquid hot magma." Stanfill for the "wrong way" link)

How a lava lamp works, and how to make your own.

Photos and videos of the real deal lava here, here and here.

Koochie, koochie koo...

Just a friendly tip: if anyone asks you if you want to experience a Spanish Tickler, you may want to take a rain check. The name may sound harmless, like some sort of, err... novelty latex product, but don't let that fool you.

This and 47 other examples of what those wacky Spanish Inquisitors spent all their spare time dreaming up can be found over at Infernal Device.
(via Cruel Site of the Day)

Stickin' it to Da Man...

Some guy has collected a gallery of stick-figure warning signs. Some of these are pretty funny. Does that make me sick?

50 Covers - No Shat!

UK's daily online version of Telegraph features the 50 Best Cover Songs Ever. And no trace (this is a good thing) of William Shatner doing "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds" and "Mister Tambourine Man".
(via kottke.org)

For those who can't get enough Shat, you may want to emote along with his new album, Has Been and enjoy the William Shatner Acting Simulator.

You mean De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da actually means something?!

Songfacts explores the meaning behind song lyrics. Often interesting, but since most of the content on the site is reader-submitted, not always trustworthy.
(via The Ultimate Insult)

Who's hungry?

Hope everyone had a tryptophan-tastic Thanksgiving! Here's also hoping you didn't see something like this on your plate tonight.

Well, I'll be a monkey's uncle...

I wouldn't have guessed it, not with so many privacy concerns and identity theft these days, but nonetheless... Look up anybody's drivers license information online. Man, I really take a bad photo in those things...
(via Neat New Stuff on the Net)

"Hey, can you get my game for me? It's back, and to the left. Back, and to the left. Back. And to the left..."

How's this for scuzzy?

A new video game called JFK Reloaded is being released today allows players to simulate President Kennedy's assassination.

Timed to coincide with the 41st anniversary of Kennedy's murder in Dallas, it will be available as a $9.99 download through Scottish game firm Traffic Games.

According to Traffic's managing director Kirk Ewing, the objective is for a player to fire three shots at Kennedy's motorcade from assassin Lee Harvey Oswald's digitally recreated sixth-floor perch in the Texas School Book Depository.

Points are awarded or subtracted based on how accurately the shots match the official version of events as documented in by the Warren Commission, which investigated Kennedy's assassination.

Shooting the image of Kennedy in the right spots in the right sequence adds to the score, while "errors" like shooting first lady Jacqueline Kennedy lead to deductions.

Each shot can be replayed in slow motion, and the bullets can be tracked as they travel and pass through Kennedy's digitally recreated body. Players can choose to see blood by pressing a "blood effects" option.

Ewing said the game was designed to undermine the theory there was some shadowy plot behind the assassination. "We believe passionately there was no conspiracy," he said.

A spokesman for Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy called it "despicable". Ewing went on to say, "We believe that the only thing we're exploiting is new technology,"

Uh-huh.

What's next, guys? Uncle Adolph's Funtime Auschwitz Factory?

Natural Born Simmers

Getting bored with your Sims game? Tired of trying to make those little ingrates happy all the time? You are not alone my friend. Seems there's a whole buncha Ted Bundy wannabes in the Sims-iverse.

The Sim Murder Page with the 9 ways to make a date with Death (and the 5 ways to cheat him)

The Sims Torture Test
and

the creepy "Week In The Life of The Sims 2"

The, once you've killed 'em, you can bring 'em back, after a fashion, though I think that this may be going a little too far...

No huffing, No puffing, No service!

Bryan Berg holds the current Guinness World Record for tallest card structure at twenty-five feet tall. He has some nice photos in the gallery as well.
(via J-Walk)

Gimme some skin

You know how when you boot up Windows XP, for example, you see something like this?



Bo-ring! So generic. So bland. So vanilla. So "The Man".

You're not that guy. You're creative! A trendsetter! A risk-taker! Right?

Thought so.

That's why you so need Bootskin.

Bootskin is a little program that will let you easily choose from hundreds of unusual, funny, strange or just downright gorgeous boot screens. The download is free, small (under 1 MB) and the bootscreens are many. Works with Windows 2000 and Windows XP (sorry Win 95/98 and Mac folk).

Up until a while ago I was using



but what with the new movie coming out, I decided to switch to



You can check out the gallery before you install by browsing here.

Circling The Bowl

Since I am going to be doing a little home plumbing repair at Information Nation HQ tonight, here is a (dare I say?) linkdump concerning the most important chair in your house.

Toiletology 101

How Toilets Work

Where does it all go?

Toilets of the World
National Public Toilet Map (Australia only)

Incinolet! "The World's Only Electric Incinerating Toilet!" (Hmm, let me get this straight, me peeing into something an electrical device, and placing my bum a few inches away from a device that heats up to 1,200° F? Where do I sign up?!)


Nowhere to hide... Public toilet made of one-way glass

Man, they really are convenient!

.

-------------------------
[Homer and Apu] walk up to the sliding doors. A bell dings as they enter and approach a man with white hair and a flowing white beard. He drinks a Squishee, and a sign behind him announces, "The Master Knows All (except combination to safe)."

Apu: He is the benevolent and enlightened president and C.E.O. of Kwik-E-Mart -- and in Ohio, Stop-O-Mart. He is the one we must ask for my job back.

Master: Approach, my sons. [they do] You may ask me three questions.

Apu: That's great, because all I need is one --

Homer: Are you _really_ the head of the Kwik-E-Mart?

Master: Yes.

Homer: Really?

Master: Yes.

Homer: You?

Master: Yes. I hope this has been enlightening for you.

Apu: But I must --

Master: Thank you, come again.

Apu: But --

Master: Thank you, come again.
---from The Simpsons "Homer and Apu"---
-------------------------

JD: Yeah, well.. I've been moved around all my life. Dallas, Baton Rouge, Vegas.. Sherwood, Ohio. There's always been a Snappy Snack Shack. Any town, any time.. pop a ham-and-cheese in the microwave and feast on a turbo dog. Keeps me sane.
---Christian Slater's "Jason Dean" in Heathers---
-------------------------

7-11 has been been offering coffee buyers a choice of filling up either a "Bush" or "Kerry" styrofoam cup, and they've been tracking who "voted" for whom this election season. Turns out their "7-Election" was actually dead-on correct with Bush getting 51% of the java vote to Kerry's 48%. It even gives the breakdown by state and major metro areas.

Hey, here's an idea. In 2008, can we just save all the anxiety, time, effort and money and just get our breaking election news while we're picking up some Corn-Nuts and nuking a turbo dog? I know it'd keep me sane...

Timely tips for bumbling ballot-casters

The Onion has cooked up some helpful guidelines for Decision '04 or Election '04 or Disappointment '04 or whatever you kids are calling it these days.

Veni, Vidi, Fill-in-the-blanki

Those who took a little Latin in high school might remember the Julius Caesar quote they taught you on Day One: "Veni, vidi, vici", which translates to "I came, I saw, I conquered".

You might not have heard of the less-successful sequels, though...

We're not worryin' at all!

More political goofiness in the vein of the This Land Is Your Land" Jibjab animation we saw a couple of months ago. Not so bi-partisan this time, though... it's Here comes W to save the day!

Halloween Linkdump

Here's a whole passel 'o' links for the upcoming holiday

ExtremePumpkins.com Still one of my favorites
carvingpumpkins.com
jack-o-patterns.com Pumpkin design = cool / web design = crap



"I'm George W. Bush, and I approve this carving"

What's that? You say you're a pumpkin-hugging liberal distraught by all this needless pumpkin butchery? There's always Funkins, artificial pumpkins made of a low density, flame resistant, polyurethane foam. Carveable and reusable. Just don't eat the seeds...

Get familiar with the tools of the trade - Dremel Pumpkin Carving Kit and

Don't let me hear you whining about how much work it is carving a pumpkin... you could have had this or this to carve.

Rock the (color) vote!

Colorcell is a neat little web experiment in group aesthetics. You are presented with 100 cells comprised of four single colors. Vote for your favorite color combinations. The more votes a cell gets, the "healthier" is becomes. Fewer votes means a "sicker" cell that will eventually die out.

You know, I heard there is some other kind of election going on next week, though I doubt it's all that important... I'm guessing Mr. Bush would cast a vote for this superpatriot combo:

while Mr. Kerry would be drawn more to the shades of gray:

(via del.icio.us)

Why graduating from Pirahã School of Accounting with honors really doesn't impress 'em in interviews

A couple of months ago, there were a number of articles about a Brazilian tribe called the Pirahã. In their culture, they have no words for numbers higher than "two". They have a word for "one" and "two". Everything else is "many".

Now you have a chance to prove you're a better counter than the Pirahã with the game 1 2 Many. You have about one second to view a screen and determine how many "stars" you see. Get it exact and you get points, off by one and you get no points. Off by two or more and you get a strike counted against you. Three strikes and the game's over. I went pretty far, but not tons of points (I kept missing the count by one -- usually I was under by one) and got a 219. How'd you do?
(via Idle Type)

Kitchen Comrades

Salt and Pepper
(first link via J-Walk)

Franks and Beans

Coffee and cream

Meet George Jetsam

I've always enjoyed Lilek's, but hadn't really explored the Jetsam Cove section until today. Start at the Cigarette ads section and plunge right in.

A cry for help/TV Hari-kiri

Guy in Oregon gets a new all-the-bells-and-whistles TV, including one whistle he wasn't expecting. For reasons unknown, it starts emitting the 121.5MHz international distress signal whenever it was turned on. Hilarity ensues.

He has been warned not to turn on the TV again or face fines of $10,000 a day for emitting a false distress signal.

in other news...

Inventor Mitch Altman has come up with a device he calls TV-B-Gone to save us from the hypnotic effects of television. From the Wired article:

The device, which looks like an automobile remote, has just one button. When activated, it spends over a minute flashing out 209 different codes to turn off televisions, the most popular brands first.

The idea for TV-B-Gone was born at a restaurant in the early 1990s, when Altman and his friends kept paying attention to a TV in the corner, not to one another. They chatted about how to turn off all televisions, and he wondered if it would be possible to string together a series of "power" commands.

(both stories via Boing Boing)

Maybe he should have used that wire he wore in the debates...

Regardless of your politics, this is pretty durned funny, right?
(via The Big Ticket)

Your Big Brother is kinda cool sometimes...

CoolGov is a pretty nifty blog that explores some of the more interesting resources available from the gummint right here in the US of A.

From the site:

The basic premise is this: the U.S. government provides lots of neat resources, more and more of which can be found on the internet. Basically, we’re just going to try and find the coolest stuff there is and post it here. After all, you paid for it… dammit, you better get some use out of it.

A couple of the cooler posts include:
How Drug Smugglers Get Caught (from a bulletin published by the DEA)
Someone patented the combover (US Patent Office)
Test Jet + 480 mph + Wall = Pancake

Spooky OH!

What with You-Know-What-oween fast approaching, why not get in the mood a little early?

Ohio's Creepiest Cemeteries
(via Growabrain)

For Sale: 1986 Ford Bus - lousy gas mileage, 2000 lbs overweight, hard to wash, even harder to wax, kazoos start humming at speeds above 20 mph - asking $130,000,000/best offer

Photos of an insanely complicated 1986 Ford WOW Bus.
(via Boing Boing)

I must be high

From An Introduction to Cluster Ballooning:

To control the altitude of the cluster balloon, the pilot takes off with more balloons than needed to lift his or her weight, and carries ballast (water or sand) to balance out most of this excess lift. To level out or descend, the pilot releases or bursts balloons. To slow the descent or ascend again, the pilot releases ballast.

Ya know, if that was me hanging up there at 5 or 10 thousand feet, I think I'd be dropping a bit of my own personal ballast if you know what I mean.

If all this sounds a little familiar, you may be thinking of Larry Walters aka "Lawnchair Larry" and his 1982 stunt in which he tied 42 helium-filled balloons to his Sears lawnchair and drifted around at 16,000 feet for a few hours, disrupting LAX air traffic. The FAA arrested him when he landed and fined him $1,500.

A guy named Mark Barry runs the Official Lawnchair Larry website, and even has recovered the lawn chair used that day.

PS. For your listening pleasure, you can liten/download this cute song from John Forster on everyone's favorite noble gas.

"It must be true. There's pictures of it on the internet!"

Well, maybe and maybe not...

Snopes is always a good reference if you're wondering if that photo your buddy emailed you of the 89-pound cat has really been doctored or not (it was). Or whether Presidents Clinton and Bush really tried using binoculars without removing the lenscaps (unlikely). Or whether a deer really wound up on the top of a utility pole (true).

Here is the full index of photographic urban legends -- debunked and... uh, bunked.

Droppin the dime

I got a counterfeit $100 bill when I was in Louisiana. I should have known, too, because I looked real close and it was spelled "hunnerd". And I don't recall any president ever wearing a tank top... - comedian Paul Gilmartin

My confidence in human intelligence was shaken when that story came out last year about the grocery store cashier who accepted a Two Hundred Dollar Bill (bearing George W. Bush's portrait) from a customer.

Hey, at least the counterfeiter was thinking big... Someone in Cherokee County, Alabama is also doing a little (very little) counterfeiting. Passing phony...(wait for it)... dimes.

Investigator Arlon Reed with the Centre Police Department said, “They are made of copper and aluminum. Every one of them have a mold. They appear to have some type of silver or aluminum paint.” According to Reed, these coins are not the same silver color as a true dime and some have mold marks like bubbles on them. Some have smooth sides, others have ribbed sides.

One store has turned up almost 30 fake dimes (nearly three dollars! American!!)

Be on the lookout, citizens of Cherokee County, Alabama!! BTW, the counterfeit dime is the one on the left.

Beacher Creatures

Since about ten years ago, Theo Jansen is occupied with the making of a new nature. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic matierial of this new nature. He makes skeletons which are able to walk on the wind. Eventually he wants to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.

Theo's webpage is called Strandbeest, and it has videos and webcams a-plenty. Some of it's in English, some in Dutch, so I'm not quite sure what's going on in some places, but it is pretty awesome...

He also made this beast:

The Rhinoceros Transport (which looks even more impressive when you watch the 2MB QuickTime video of it walking)

Why? Because 886 was just too many.

Philly area radio station WXPN 88.5FM is playing the results of their listener poll-driven "885 Greatest Songs" every day this week 6am-10pm Eastern Time. Click Listen Live! to hear XPN (Windows Media Player required). Hopefully it will work. I have listened in the past, but it wouldn't connect this morning, though it could just be that The Man is blocking access here at work...

XPN is the University of Pennsylvania's non-commercial public radio station and claims to be "the premier radio showcase for contemporary music that spans the progressive edges of rock, folk, rhythm and blues, and American roots." Among other things, they also produce the nationally syndicated World Cafe.

The list looks pretty interesting thusfar... Here was what made the list on Monday (#885-698) and Tuesday (#697-521).


XPN also has a great bulletin board-type section, where listeners can help each other identify songs and artists they heard on the station. Click on What's That Song? and pick which category you want:
I keep hearing these words...
I know the title but not the artist...
I know when I heard it...
and I know the artist, but what's that song?

So... what do you think is gonna be Numero Uno?

Nothin' but respect

Rodney Dangerfield 1921-2004.

Fear and Loathing in the Kingdom

Great. As if I didn't spend enough time on the computer as it is, now I went and started playing The Kingdom of Loathing. I'm a Level 3 Zydeco Rogue! W00t!

UPDATE: Here is a nice review of KoL.

Quick! What am I going to post about?

All those who believe in psychokinesis, raise my hand
seen on a bumper sticker

Think you're psychic? Take the quiz and find out whether you've got the chops or whether you've just been faking it all this time...
(via MonkeyFilter)

The hidden volcano

Lots of news today about increased seismic activity on Mt. Saint Helens. Scientists are predicting a small-to-moderate eruption occurring within the next few days, perhaps spewing ash and rock up to three miles from the crater.

A much bigger volcano with potential to wreak orders of magnitude more damage is little known, though millions visit every year. The Yellowstone caldera has been erupting regularly every 600,000 years, and the last eruption was 640,000 years ago. By way of comparison, the next eruption will be something on the order of 2,500 times more powerful than the 1980 Mt. Saint Helens eruption.

I recently read a great book by Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything. One of the chapters went into scary detail on what to expect if (more like when) it blows again.

A nice summary of what the Yellowstone caldera is about, where it came from and what it's capable of is available if you aren't up for reading Bryson's book.

Meta-Museum

Coudal Partners brings you the indispensible Museum of Online Museums. Where else are you gonna see exhibits for The Gas Mask Museum, Foreign Groceries Museum, The Gallery of Birth Control Packaging, The Chopsticks Gallery and The Gallery of Stove Burners just to name a few (you think I'm making this stuff up, don't you?)

If your appetite for bizarre collections is but whetted, feel free to wander through the cluttered but nonetheless cool MoOM Annex, featuring hundreds more links to the likes of Dan Heller's Manhole Covers of the World and the Furnace Sticker Museum. Wow.

Get your fetish on!

Stirring up the hornet's nest

Looking at all the outraged comments posted after Wesley Kose's "One Hundred Albums You Should Remove from Your Collection Immediately", I hope he can safely show his face in public.
(via thirdredeye)

Teresa Heinz Kerry's Competition

The Ketchup Conundrum - Mustard now comes in dozens of varieties. Why has ketchup stayed the same?

and

Why does taco sauce clean pennies?
(both via kottke.org)

Borborygmi? Really?

My Favorite Word is still getting off the ground and thus a little light on content right now, but it is an interesting concept.

Borborygmi

Where In The World Is Slovenia?

If you're like me, you'll learn a lesson in humility by taking the Geography Olympics quiz. First, pick the country you are representing. Then you are then given ten randomly chosen countries; it's your job to determine where those countries are located.

I took the quiz three times. Embarrassingly, my best result was 30% (3 out 10). The other two times I scored a paltry 20%. Sorry, Team USA, I brought our national average down 0.04% to our current 66th place standing of 55.21% (view current leaderboard)

Come on, guys! Let's get some geography ringers in there and blast those wily Finlanders (where's Finland?!) out of first place! We can do it!
U!S!A!
U!S!A!
U!S!A!
(via Neat New Stuff on the Net)

Eyes & Ears

I'll be incorporating a Books 'N' Music feature in the right-hand column, just listing what is currently residing on my bookshelf and CD player. Since I am trying to do this on the cheap, I am using a service called FreeImageUpload.com. Since it's free, it seems incredible to me that they aren't blasting popups or banners or anything. I tested in Internet Explorer 6 and Firefox 1.0 Preview Release and saw nothing offensive other than what I am personally responsible for :-)

Please let me know if you are having a different experience, either by emailing me (see the "contact" link at the bottom of the page) or by commenting in this post.

Any book/music recommendations are welcome! I am a big science/math/non-fiction book geek, and really like most any kind of music.

If Bill can figure it out, so can I...

• The name of the game is Petals Around the Rose.


• The name of the game is important.


• The computer will roll five dice and ask you to guess the score for the roll.


• The score will always be zero or an even number.


Your mission is to work out how the computer calculates the score and become a Potentate of the Rose and qualify to become a member of the Fraternity of Petals Around the Rose.

Lloyd Borrett's website also has a story about a young Bill Gates and his first exposure to the puzzle back in 1977. Interesting reading...

PS. No, I haven't figured it out yet!

PPS. This didn't work for me at all in Fireox 1.0 Preview Release. It does work in Internet Explorer 6, and supposedly it works in older versions of Netscape, though I haven't verified.

"Honey, I Blew Up The Printer!"

Ever wish you could get all "Office Space" on that printer/computer/laptop at home? For the price of a Ben Franklin, the guys at WeBlowITup.com can subject your offending device to their patented C3 (Concussive Computer Catastrophe) Technology.

Watch videos of their earth-shattering and groundbreaking (literally) technology at work!

Penguin Abuse

It's the Pingu Throw/Orca Slap/Seal Bounce/Albatross Overload/Flamingo Drive Pentathlon!

This Is Your Life!/Is This Your Life?

What would you do if you found someone's digital media card from their camera left behind in your taxi? This guy has decided to post one photo a day (there's 227 photos spanning over a year) on his blog I Found Some Of Your Life. He doesn't know who the people in the pictures are, so he's taken some artistic license to provide a little backstory for the captions. Is it real? Or a hoax? If it's not a hoax, is it even legal? Either way, it's pretty entertaining... (via Slashdot)

More "found photos" with "Camera In The Woods". Guy finds digital camera in the woods, posts pics on internet. Very creepy, a la Blair Witch Project. General consensus is that these are fake.

Yet more found photos (with some really funny posted comments) at Spillway, which I discovered through one of the comments posted in the Slashdot story. I couldn't get all the Spillway pages to open, though. Perhaps you will have better luck.

Kinda reminds me of The Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players. Watch a clip from their appearance in McEnroe's show. Is it me or does that dad in the band look like Chuckie from Rugrats?

Back To The Futurama

From Wil Wheaton -- author, actor, blogger, poker-player and all-around nice guy comes a link to The 25 Best Futurama Moments Ever.

There's also rumors floating around that due to decent DVD sales, Futurama may be brought back to TV a la Family Guy.

O Death, where is thy blog?

Three buddies die in a car crash, they go to heaven to an orientation.

They are all asked, "When you are in your casket and friends and family are mourning upon you, what would you like to hear them say about you?"

The first man says, "I would like to hear them say that I was a great doctor of my time, and a great family man."

The second man says, " I would like to hear that I was a wonderful husband and school teacher which made a huge difference in our children of tomorrow."

The last guy replies, " I would like to hear them say... LOOK!! HE'S MOVING!!!"

Discovered the interesting The Blog Of Death today, which isn't as forboding as it sounds. It's basically an obituary blog for famous/relatively famous/infamous folk.

A number of good links in the sidebar as well. Here were a few of my favorites:
Find A Grave
Tombstone Generator
Death Clock

Also found a pretty amazing set of photos from the cemetery at St Paul's Church, Birmingham, England posted on a site called Mourning_Souls. Kinda must be where they got the idea for the ending of the movie Carrie...

Wood/Work

David C. Roy makes wooden absolutely stunning kinetic sculptures that are showcased at his Wood That Works site. Of course, I not only can't afford even the smallest of his works, I probably can't even afford the gas used to deliver the wood to his shop...

Where's the love?

The Ten Most Hated Men In Rock (not, you know, including Sting, which is a given... not that he really rocks anymore anyway)
(via Chromatic Musings)

"If you vend it, they will come"

Bizarre items sold in vending machines, including: beer (in the convenient 3-liter mini-barrel!), hamburgers, poached eggs, beetles and frogs. Oh, and The American Museum of Atomic Energy in Oak Ridge, Tennessee used to vend radioactive dimes. Get 'em while they're hot!

More than just a beer

The Guinness Book of World Records is 50 years old this week. To commemorate, The Mirror (UK) lists their nominees for the 50 Weirdest World Records. But how did they miss this one?

The Most Dangerous Game(s)

RetroCRUSH muses on some of the dangers of childhood play.

The most dangerous coolest playground ever made
Deadly and dandy playgrounds of yesteryear
Top 10 toys of the 70's
Deadly toys of days gone by

For Our "Matchless" Friends!

A collection of links devoted to the hobby of Phillumeny (the collecting of matchbook covers). No, really.

The least geeky and most accessible and humorous would be over yonder at Lilek's Matchbook Museum. (while you're at it, check out the rest of Lilek's as well. You'll thank me later.

Rathkamp Matchbook Society holds the coveted title of "The Oldest Phillumenic Organization In The World!" Heartbreakingly, you just missed their 2004 convention, which wrapped up a few weeks ago. But there's always next year! Better pre-register now!

RMS also lists a cubic buttload of other people with this strange hobby.

What's my age again?

I usually think I have no skill in guessing people's ages. But I am doing pretty well at The Age Project. Maybe I can get that dream job guessing weight/age/birth moth at the carnival after all!
(via Sarcasmo's Corner)

Shave and a haircut

Bad haircuts, courtesy of Tan's Barbers. Sports fan? No problem at Tan's! Look ridiculous and support your team!

You mean to tell me some little kid's choice was not Spiderman or Incredible Hulk, but "Remembering JFK, Jr."? Or a freaking NATO haircut?! I don't think so...

PS. Kinda looks like Horseshoe Guy is regretting his impulse buy, dont ya think?
(via small.to)

D-liver D-letter, D-sooner, D-better!

del·ti·ol·o·gy n. The collection and study of postcards.

Google-ing for old postcards brings up a mind-bogglingly wide assortment of links, just a few of which I'll list here.

OldPostcards.com offers over 3 million old postcards, grouped by topic, including Sumo Wrestling, Elephant Tusk and Animals Smoking.

Postcardman.net is another biggie. Cards covering Dead People, Leper Colonies and Washerwomen.

Three guesses what "Postcard Bill" Judnick collects and sells. He runs lotsofcards.com, lotsofstamps.com and the interesting lotsofcovers.com, a huge collection of envelopes, postmarks and other postal artifacts.

Deltiology.com isn't the prettiest of sites. He has background images that make most of his pages practically unreadable, so when you see the link to turn them off, you might want to do so. He does have a cool Old-Time Postmark Calendar, though. Every day of the year shows an old postmark from the corresponding date. The bad news is that the calendars are from 1995, left over from the original printing run. The good news is that they're still interesting to look at, and in 2006, the dates will match up again and the calendar will be useful once again! He's asking a mere $3 apiece, or 5 for $12.

Hmm... Now what could possibly rhyme with "Nantucket"?

A dictionary with a new twist:
A limerick defines the word's gist.
Submit your endeavor,
Make sure that it's clever
And maybe yours will make the list!

The vision of The OEDILF (The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form) is to create a limerick for each word in the English language. Yes, you read that right. They are currently accepting submissions with words starting Aa-Ar.

Read the overview/FAQ for the nitty-gritty. If you've got a way with words, you can join the cause and start contributing right away.

I do'nt "need" you're assistants, grammer and spellinge Nazi's!

From the Punctuation-Pet-Peeves Dep't.
There's a real estate office near my house that has a huge sign reading, Come In For A "Free" Estimate!

So... I guess it's not "really" free, then?

Incorrect punctuation and grammar use really sets me off for some reason, with misused apostrophes topping the list. It's pretty amazing how many professionally printed signs have such basic grammatical/spelling errors. Apparently, I'm not the only one who notices these things:

Home for Abused Apostrophes, including this sad example. (Poor Glady! Whatever will happen to her May?)
The Apostrophe Protection Society (with Examples Page)
Gallery of "Misused" Quotation Marks
Misspelled Signs

Film Streamlining

The Fall movie season is nigh upon us and that historically means lots of Oscar-worthy films to watch. In fact, the number of films may be overwhelming, so it's a good thing that Fametracker is out there with chainsaw in hand to assist in trimming off some of the deadwood with their list of The 10 Least Essential Fall Films of 2004.

The Worst of Baseball

Worst Baseball Teams Ever

Worst Baseball Video Game

Worst Baseball Uniform

Worst Baseball Nickname

Worst Baseball Team Names

Worst Losing Streak

Worst Baseball Blowout

Worst Baseball Promotion Ideas

Remove that monkey from your back, soldier!

Remember the story earlier this month about the Finnish army excusing some of their conscripts from military duty because they claimed to be addicted to the Internet?

Maybe they could use Lockout, which forces you to not be able to websurf. Hey Finns! Just say "No"! Where's Nancy Reagan when you need her?

Tricks of the Trade

Matthew Baldwin from The Morning News writes a great little article about the secret tips and tricks that various trades use to make their job a little easier. For example:

Photographer

When taking family portraits that include a dog, don’t use the dog’s name or say “doggie, doggie” to get its attention, because it might trot over to you. Instead, call out “kitty, kitty, kitty.” The dog will perk up and look around for a cat, and you can get a great shot if you time it right.

Nurse

Patients will occasionally pretend to be unconscious. A surefire way to find them out is to pick up their hand, hold it above their face, and let go. If they smack themselves, they’re most likely unconscious; if not, they’re faking.

(via Boing Boing)

Sign, Sign, Everywhere a Sign

Hall of Technical Documentation Weirdness (thanks, Bonnie, even if you do talk smack behind my back...)

Also: You can look at some strange signs at... StrangeSigns.org

Instaworld

Here's your chance to play God.

Terragen is a small but very powerful terrain generator that allows you to create stunningly realistic landscapes. Here is Terragen's image gallery so you can browse what other people have created.

You can control whether you want lakes and rivers, whether the atmosphere is clear or hazy, how much cloud cover and what types of clouds, direction, size and brightness of the sun, and the list goes on. There are dozens of variables you can tweak, and best of all, it's free. And at under 3MB, surprisingly compact. (Windows, Mac versions)

Once you play around with creating landscapes, you can check out Campath, which allows you to create MPEG animations of "fly-throughs" over your world.

Crack addict

I crack my knuckles, which I admit, annoys some people. And maybe those people ought not go to Crack My Knuckles.

Break the code, break the bank?

Codes have always fascinated me, as have unsolved mysteries. Here are some items that incorporate a little of each:

The Beale Ciphers - Millions in gold and silver buried in a cave in Virginia. All you have to do is break the code that tells where it's buried. Some linguists have studied the word frequency usage and believe it all to be a hoax, perhaps concocted by Edgar Allen Poe, while others claim to have solved the mystery.

Oak Island Treasure - One of my favorite buried treasure mysteries. Is there pirate loot somewhere in what has been dubbed The Money Pit?

The Dorabella Cipher - Can you decode the message Edward Elgar ("Pomp and Circumstance") sent to a frind? No one has yet...



Many, many more fascinating mysteries are described at the wonderful Elonka's List of Famous Unsolved Codes and Ciphers.

Can someone turn down the lake? I'm freezing!

Toronto has come up with an ingenious alternative to conventional air-conditioning for their office buildings and homes downtown. Using their Enwave system, intake pipes stretch out 5km into Lake Ontario to a depth of 83 meters. At this depth, the water is near-freezing (4° C) year-round. It is then piped to the filtration plant where a heat exchanger chills the water in the loop that supplies the air-conditioning for the downtown buildings. The lakewater then continues its journey into the city's drinking water system.

They note that the cooling system reduces energy usage, freeing up megawatts from the Ontario's electrical grid, minimizes ozone-depleting refrigerants and reduces the amount of carbon dioxide entering the air. The company claims they have the capacity to air-condition to 100 office buildings or 8,000 homes, equivalent to 32 million square feet of building space.

It sounds a little complicated as I describe it, but it is much more clear after checking out the explanation at Enwave's site.
(via Slashdot)

Productivity? We don't need no steenkeen' productivity!

Some timewasters for your dull Thursday.

Wastepaper - Click on the paperwad at the right time to get it in the wastebasket. Watch those air currents, though.

Soda Constructor - Build your own creepy-looking robot/bug thingies.

Wire Skeleton - Just what the name says... a wire skeleton.

Swron - A nice version of the light-cycle game from the movie Tron.

Need more? There's a couple hundred or so more at AddictingGames.com

You can get anything you want at Alice's Restaurant...

...though Shopsin's in New York's West Village might give Alice's a run for her money. The place is small (seats thirty-four) but the menu is not. Owner Kenny Shopsin has created a let's say unorthodox menu of over 900 items.

Kenny is also a bit unorthodox himself, making Seinfeld's Soup Nazi seems soft and cuddly in comparison. Read Calvin Trillin's 2002 New Yorker article on Shopsin's for a glimpse.
(via kottke.org)

From Hell's heart I stab at thee!

Sure, you could spend 2 hours watching Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, but who has that kinda time? Better you should just get to the best part. Oh yeah, turn those speakers up. Waaay up!

Now you can take a little Khan-y goodness with you wherever you go.

The Cult of KenJen

Okay, you probably have heard all the hooplah about Ken Jennings, the guy with the most wins on Jeopardy ever with 38 and counting (Jeopardy resumes taping their 21st season - with Ken still going strong - in August). Still I was surprised at all the webspace devoted to him. Here are just a few:

The in-depth Wikipedia article on Ken Jennings, which mentions some of his trademark behaviors, like:

* He writes his name in a different style each day, with styles ranging from cursive script to block letters to dots.
* Every time his total winnings are announced at the beginning of the show, he shakes his head in disbelief.
* He will often attempt to pronounce foreign words, phrases, or locations with an accent.
* On Final Jeopardy! and the Daily Doubles he almost always wagers an amount that could bring his total to a multiple of $5,000, or at the least a multiple of $1,000.
* He did not want to beat the $52,000 single-day record of former five-day champion Brian Weikle just "for the sake of beating it" (from the Jeopardy! forums). He intentionally tied this record three times. However, on the episode aired July 23, the final episode of the Jeopardy! season and Jennings' 38th win, he entered Final Jeopardy! with a total only $600 shy of the record, and beat it with a final total of $75,000. (He would have broken the record with $60,000 in his 30th win, but missed the Final Jeopardy! question and finished that game with $32,000).

Plus, there's also JEOPARCHIVE!, which not only tracks every question and answer from Ken's 38 shows, but even better, also every Q & A from all 230 shows in Season 20!

This is supposedly Ken's personal website, which which lists over 2,000 of his favorite movies. I have not seen much to corroborate that this is the Ken Jennings, though. Could be just someone with the same name.

Finally, if you're the type who simply would not be complete unless you knew every inane personal factoid about KenJen ("When is Ken's birthday?! How can I get an autograph?! What is Ken's favorite pasta shape?!, etc...), you may want to visit KEN JENNINGS FANS UNITE, where you can swap stories about how you made desktop KenJen icons, or how you *gush*actually got an EMAIL from Ken!

Someone get the Black Flag

There are no significant bugs in our released software that any significant number of users want fixed. (Bill Gates)

The wages of sin is debugging. (Ron Jeffries)

What's up, doc? (Bugs Bunny)

First computer bug
Worst computer bug

Who's on 00000001?

(I am not usually the kind of guy to post jokes email to me, but this one made me grin. Thanks, Dagmar!)

In today's world, Bud ABBOTT and Lou COSTELLO's famous sketch "Who's on first?" might have turned out something like this....


COSTELLO CALLS TO BUY A COMPUTER FROM ABBOTT . . . .
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: Thanks.I'm setting up an office in my den and I'm thinking about buying a computer.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: No, the name's Lou.
ABBOTT: Your computer?
COSTELLO: I don't own a computer.I want to buy one.
ABBOTT: Mac?
COSTELLO: I told you, my name's Lou.
ABBOTT: What about Windows?
COSTELLO: Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
ABBOTT: Do you want a computer with Windows?
COSTELLO: I don't know. What will I see when I look in the windows?
ABBOTT: Wallpaper.
COSTELLO: Never mind the windows.I need a computer and software.
ABBOTT: Software for Windows?
COSTELLO: No. On the computer!I need something I can use to write proposals,track expenses and run my business. What have you got?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend anything?
ABBOTT: I just did.
COSTELLO: You just did what?
ABBOTT: Recommend something.
COSTELLO: You recommended something?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: For my office?
ABBOTT: Yes.
COSTELLO: OK, what did you recommend for my office?
ABBOTT: Office.
COSTELLO: Yes, for my office!
ABBOTT: I recommend Office with Windows.
COSTELLO: I already have an office with windows! OK, lets just say I'm sitting at my computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I need?
ABBOTT: Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: Word in Office.
COSTELLO: The only word in office is office.
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: Which word in office for windows?
ABBOTT: The Word you get when you click the blue "W".
COSTELLO: I'm going to click your blue "w" if you don't start with some straight answers. OK, forget that. Can I watch movies on the Internet?
ABBOTT: Yes, you want Real One.
COSTELLO: Maybe a real one, maybe a cartoon. What I watch is none of your business. Just tell me what I need!
ABBOTT: Real One.
COSTELLO: If it's a long movie I also want to see reel 2, 3 & 4. Can I watch them?
ABBOTT: Of course.
COSTELLO: Great! With what?
ABBOTT: Real One.
COSTELLO: OK, I'm at my computer and I want to watch a movie. What do I do?
ABBOTT: You click the blue "1".
COSTELLO: I click the blue one what?
ABBOTT: The blue "1".
COSTELLO: Is that different from the blue w?
ABBOTT: The blue "1" is Real One and the blue "W" is Word.
COSTELLO: What word?
ABBOTT: The Word in Office for Windows.
COSTELLO: But there's three words in "office for windows"!
ABBOTT: No, just one. But it's the most popular Word in the world.
COSTELLO: It is?
ABBOTT: Yes, but to be fair, there aren't many other Words left. It pretty much wiped out all the other Words out there.
COSTELLO: And that word is real one?
ABBOTT: Real One has nothing to do with Word. Real One isn't even part of Office.
COSTELLO: STOP! Don't start that again. What about financial bookkeeping? You have anything I can track my money with?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: That's right. What do you have?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: I need money to track my money?
ABBOTT: It comes bundled with your computer
COSTELLO: What's bundled with my computer?
ABBOTT: Money.
COSTELLO: Money comes with my computer?
ABBOTT: Yes. No extra charge.
COSTELLO: I get a bundle of money with my computer? How much?
ABBOTT: One copy.
COSTELLO: Isn't it illegal to copy money?
ABBOTT: Microsoft gave us a license to copy money.
COSTELLO: They can give you a license to copy money?
ABBOTT: Why not? THEY OWN IT!

A FEW DAYS LATER . .
ABBOTT: Super Duper computer store. Can I help you?
COSTELLO: How do I turn my computer off?
ABBOTT: Click on "START"..........

The Revolution Will Not Be Capitalized

One of life's annoyances is when you accidentALLY HIT THE CAPS LOCK KEY AND TYPE A WHOLE BUNCH OF STUFF BEFORE YOU REALIZE...OH CRAP... SEe what I mean? I thought maybe I could find a little app that would allow you to highlight your case-mangled text and convert it to something a little less shouty. So far, I haven't come across such a tool, but I did find some brethren who share my pain in anticAPSLOCK.com.

According to their Mission Statement

Our goal here at anticAPSLOCK.com is to have the capslock key removed from keyboards that are manufactured in the future.

Until that glorious Caps Lock-free day arrives, they do have some alternatives like ClipControl, Transform and Togglekeys. VIVA LA REVO...#$@&!!!... I mean, viva la revolution!!!

Utilities for your teeny-tiny toolbelt

Tons of useful (and a few not so much) freeware apps and utilities so small they can practically fit on the nail of your baby toe... TinyApps.org offers apps broken down by categories like Internet, System, Graphics and Palm. I have read good things about Under1mb.com, but they appear to be down right now... Both offer apps that will fit on a floppy. If anything approaching 1.44MB seems waaaayyy too big for you (maybe you have one of these babies), perhaps Under100 is a better fit for you. They promise that all their apps are under 100KB.
(via Circadian Shift)

Cake And Pie For The Geek Guy

How cool is this?? ThinkGeek sells an EZ-Bake Oven for your PC. Anyone seen the frosting?
(via The Ultimate Insult)

I feel the need to read for speed

How fast do you read? Take the test and find out!
(via Mookie)

4 out of 5 dentists preferred his artwork

Jason Kronenwald makes his each of his Gum Blondes portraits out of nothing but chewed bubblegum applied to a plywood backing, and no paint or dye is used.

From the Bio:

Kronenwald has a dedicated team of chewers and prefers the textured of Trident. However, he does not chew gum himself, unless he must.

Hey Jason! I have an idea for your next series of portraits!
(via memepool)